Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella: Permanently Working From Home Can Be Damaging For Mental Health (indiatimes.com) 203
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella warns that making remote work permanent could have serious consequences for workers' social interaction and mental health. Times of India reports: Nadella said that an all-remote setup would be "replacing one dogma with another dogma." "What does burnout look like? What does mental health look like? What does that connectivity and the community building look like? One of the things I feel is, hey, maybe we are burning some of the social capital we built up in this phase where we are all working remote. What's the measure for that?" Nadella was quoted as saying. His comments came after Twitter, and most recently Square, announced that its employees will be able to work from home even after the COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders end.
Very True (Score:5, Funny)
Sitting in front of windows all day can't be great for ones health.
Re: Very True (Score:2)
Good thing I use Linux for my remote work, then.
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Good thing I use Linux for my remote work, then.
Careful! Linux uses things called "Window (no "s") Managers"!
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Sitting in a cube is not great for ones health
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I sit in a cube at work and look out the window and see green trees and blue sky. Working at home I only see a beige wall over my monitor.
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That's entirely your problem, and the solution is entirely in your hands.
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That does not sound like a good setup. Maybe put up a poster on the wall behind your monitor?
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Too late for me (although FVWM is not so bad as other variants). I probably have had that damage for a decade or so....
introvert vs extrovert (Score:5, Insightful)
Lastly: Nadella's assuming we like to socialize with the people at work instead of say your spouse or your neighbour on your mutual lunch breaks. Or hell after a few hours of non-stop meetings you might just want to spend your lunch break with not a notification, person around and read a book or something.
Forgot where I read it but it made total sense: basically modern offices are designed by and for extroverts. The theory was extroverts get seen by management and generally kiss ass and get promoted. The types of people that'll be productivity experts also tend to be extroverts. End result no walls for anyone, lots of bs like multiple times a day having group meetings and huddles. Little games like a physical kanban board, or a single coffee machine for 100 people so you all have to get up and in the same space as you work etc. IMO people that are extreme extroverts tend not to be able to see the problem making everything a dance club makes things for others, and introversion is seen as a thing you need to get coached out of.
Problem is about half of workers are introverts and in some fields even more so. So what happens when an ex-football player gets made PO on your project? Open work spaces and every piece of work needs a team huddle.
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I agree (Score:4, Interesting)
I thought I didn't need people. Then I did an IT work from home consulting contract for 6 months.
Now I call my people tendencies more a sliding scale that skews toward solitude.
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Have you tried walking out of the door of your apartment/house yes? It will fix your missing getting out every day and going somewhere. While at it, you can go for a dinner or drinks with your coworkers to get that professional and social interaction.
It only takes the smallest of effort to do.
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This. I've been working from home for a decade. There are big benefits. I don't spend 3 hours a day commuting and get to spend a lot more time with my family. But you need to prepare an environment and timetable to make it work. Have a proper workspace, not just sitting on the sofa all day (fine for short periods but very bad for posture). Make sure your house is bright, clean and tidy. Take regular breaks. Breaks should involve getting up and moving around, which is often a good time to think through probl
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Of course I have social and professional interaction outside of work. But going to the office provides another opportunity for those interactions. I'm not trying to suggest that the office is the sole location for doing those things. I'm saying that I appreciate the additional opportunity that working in an office gives me for those types of interactions. I thought that was obvious enough that it didn't need to be said.
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Problem is that you phrased your previous post like this:
>I miss getting out every day and going somewhere, and I miss professional and social interaction with my coworkers.
This implies that you're not doing those things, as to "miss something", one has to go without that something. That's where the "go away so I can miss you" adage comes from.
Re:I agree (Score:5, Interesting)
I've worked from home 60-80% for the last 10 years and I find the nature of the work to be influential as to whether or not the social nature of the job matters.
Intellectually challenging/interesting/engrossing work seems to decrease my need to interact with people. The time flies by and you don't even really know you haven't interacted with anyone.
Low-effort, repetitive work, especially with no obvious payoff seems to make isolation seem worse. I got stuck on a project that involved a bunch of assessments and reporting that just about drove me insane. Partly it was the nature of the project, the deliverable was pro forma only and nobody really cared about it, plus it was dull as dishwater to execute.
I think a big part of why social interaction matters to white collar workers is that so much of the work they do is basically bureaucratic irrelevance, soulless paper pushing. Social interaction is some kind of distraction from the ennui of irrelevant work. It would certainly go a long way towards explaining the high number of pointless meetings in offices.
Re:I agree (Score:4, Insightful)
p>I think a big part of why social interaction matters to white collar workers is that so much of the work they do is basically bureaucratic irrelevance, soulless paper pushing. Social interaction is some kind of distraction from the ennui of irrelevant work. It would certainly go a long way towards explaining the high number of pointless meetings in offices.
I'm certain that you're on to something here. When you've got real work to do, a meeting is just a huge distraction and usually isn't helping you in the slightest. Sitting around talking is literally not getting work done.
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Well, it is also a matter of personality, of preference and of the situation at home. I expect that the only good answer is to have a selection of options and have everybody select what works best for them.
might do a coworking facility a day or two a week (Score:2)
I am only mildly introverted.
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Same. Worked contracts from home about 15 years ago for several months and it was very isolating. I find the current situation is more of the same. I find I'm even hanging out on conference calls that have little to do with my while I work just to "be" with people these days.
And the other side of the coin with working from home all the time is I get distracted without a train to catch so I end up working later than I should a lot. Been forcing myself to take a full hour for lunch even if I just make a s
Shit that Satya Nadella says (Score:5, Insightful)
Satya Nadella has a degree in Computer Science and an MBA. He and I, therefore, have exactly the same credentials regarding the effects of work environments on the human mind. This is what I say, having worked exclusively from home since 2015:
My mental health is vastly improved since achieving great social distance from the office. I will never, ever return, at pain of poverty and/or death.
Re:Shit that Satya Nadella says (Score:5, Insightful)
It goes both ways. I can singularly focus better working from home, but there isn't really a replacement for casual work conversations that can make solutions better.
That can be done remote too (Score:2)
there isn't really a replacement for casual work conversations that can make solutions better.
I find quick video chats with one or two people can be just as good for that purpose, however they take more mental effort to initiate... but after working at home for aa long time, you can learn to request those when it would be useful.
Re:Shit that Satya Nadella says (Score:4, Interesting)
I disagree. In my previous industry position, our developers had to share an open-plan office. As a result, verbal discussions were seriously frowned upon, because they disturbed everyone. Most conversation stuff was by chat - everyone had a chat app open on their desktop. You would send a message to someone and - when they had time / were at a stopping point - they would read your message and reply. This worked incredibly well.
Of course, sometimes you did need to discuss something, so you agreed to leave the room and go have a coffee. This is the one area where current video conferencing software is still inadequate. That said, the current spike in usage is going to drive better solutions, plus people just have to get used to a different way of interacting.
Right now, my current group is all on home-office. Every Thursday evening we have a "virtual happy hour" at 17:00. Lots of casual chit-chat, occasional work issues get brought up - now that people are relaxing into it, it is almost as good as the previous in-person "let's all go have lunch". Actually, in some respects it's better - our group isn't all in the same building, so physical meet-ups are a problem anyway.
IMHO the biggest problem with teleconferencing is the way audio/video are used. Just as one example: in a face-to-face situation, people have different locations. Teleconferencing software pipes all audio from straight ahead. To replicate the feel of a physical space, it would help if the software would distribute images on the screen, and use stereo capabilities to distribute audio to match. This would also (to a limited extent) allow simultaneous conversations: talk to the person on your right, while ignoring the conversation on your left.
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I've been working from home for about 8 months now (long story) so I do have some insight into doing it long term.
It's great at first but eventually you start to miss human contact at the office. You can't just look to see if your colleagues are busy and maybe go discuss something with them, you have to message them and then hit them up on Skype and do screen sharing etc which is more of an interruption.
I'd much rather be able to work from home when I choose and go into the office when it suits. It's not th
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Agree. Self-isolation might be allowing introverts to thrive. Extroverts, however, will suffer. Expecting everyone to behave and respond in exactly the same way is a rather solipsistic way of thinking. That Tailhook is satisfied working from home, more power to him. Nadella is talking about the mental welfare of more than just a segment of the workforce.
I'd like to think that after this over we can find a compromise which doesn't favor the noisy disruptive environment of the office (extrovert's natural
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I feel like this social thing.... Do we expect everyone to be friends at work?
I'm not necessarily friends with all my coworkers but we have a mutual respect for each other and the job, sideline conversations at the coffee pot can be very useful.
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I'm not necessarily friends with all my coworkers but we have a mutual respect for each other and the job, sideline conversations at the coffee pot can be very useful.
Currently working from home since March 7th. Being a sociable chap, I miss the small interactions - even saying "hello" to the guy who maintains the office. Also interactions with other people who I've known for many years, but whose work life doesn't interact with mine any more.
You can live without that low-level interaction, but it's less healthy without it.
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I guess the question is then, are there other social interactions that you're involved in?
Personally after work, I tend towards solitude. As an introvert, I recharge while I'm doing other things around the house. Working from home doesn't use up that energy I expend when around other people at the office.
I'm finding that without that social interaction, my ability to be around other people for longer periods is greatly reduced and I tire more easily when having to interact with others face to face.
[John]
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Extroverts hate working from home and naturally think that everyone else hates it too. They tend to consider introverts to already be mentally damaged anyway, and believe they are helping introverts "come out of their shell" by forcing them to work in a crowded, distracting, disease-ridden cube farm. And of course, the LAST thing an extrovert wants is for working from home to become trendy, since that might impact their ability to have a crowd around them at the office, so they will say whatever they thin
Introverts too ... just takes longer (Score:2)
Extroverts hate working from home and naturally think that everyone else hates it too.
Introverts can find working at home too isolating as well. I'm only mildly introverted so I was OK for a while, but then I started missing being around people even if not interacting on the project. I visited some clients on days I did not need to be on site just to be around folks. I'm thinking of spending a day or so a week at a local coworking facility.
They tend to consider introverts to already be mentally damaged anyway, and believe they are helping introverts "come out of their shell" by forcing them to work in a crowded, distracting, disease-ridden cube farm.
Some cubes offer more privacy than others. Had the high wall variant, not so bad. Low wall variant popular in open office floor plans, crap IMHO, maybe fo
Re:Introverts too ... just takes longer (Score:4, Insightful)
Introverts can find working at home too isolating as well. I'm only mildly introverted so I was OK for a while, but then I started missing being around people even if not interacting on the project.
I think you have to be careful of your generalizations there. For instance, I'm not "mildly introverted" as you put it. Rather I'm completely off-the-fucking-MB-charts introverted. Because I don't rank high enough to have my own office at work, I'm inevitably stuck in a soul-sucking/energy-depleting cubicle environment. Or even worse: an open office.
Thankfully I've been 100% WFH since June of 2019. And I'm thriving! I've never been happier or more productive at work.
Ultimately, I think the best overall solution is as others have suggested: flexibility. For those hyper-introverted: let them WFH permanently. For others, a sliding scale as they (not the employer!) need for their own sanity and productivity.
I do believe that by the time we get to 2021, the likes of GOOG and FB will re-visit their "WFH until 2021" statement. They're going to check the general productivity levels of their employees, and likely extend that to "permanent". The next step: start shrinking office holdings significantly. No company wants to be in the real estate business if they avoid it. Specially in Silly Valley! The cost savings from taxes, insurance, and other OpEx could be huge.
Not all company offices are crap ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Satya Nadella has a degree in Computer Science and an MBA. He and I, therefore, have exactly the same credentials ...
Funny, me too. Guess what one of the takeaways from my MBA program was. One size fits all does not work, a good manager realizes that different people will find higher efficiency in different ways.
My mental health is vastly improved since achieving great social distance from the office. I will never, ever return, at pain of poverty and/or death.
Besides people being different, offices can also be different. I was fortunate, I had cubes for about four years, a single occupant office for about 14 and only a couple years in an open office layout. I have also been working from my home office for many years now. Don't miss the open office layout so much, miss the single occupant offices and being around my peers.
... People sitting at a crappy table, on a crappy chair, with only their laptop, it was nearly cafeteria style tables and chairs. This idiot didn't even provide external keyboards, mice and monitors. I wonder if they had good chairs, good external monitors, good keyboard and mouse (users choice) if he would have had more showing up on site? Similarly I suspect more would have shown up with single occupant offices and the good stuff mentioned. Not all, again, different folks will find their best efficiency in different environments.
A friend who is pro open office floor plan sent me an article about a "success story". The owner of this startup talked about how cool the office was yet employees preferred working at home. Bay area, huge antique wooden door at entrance, lots of other vanity BS. The photo of people working on site
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So I have exactly the same credentials and have done WFH stints before and I would say the opposite. I prefer working at an office with people around. It's almost like people have different experiences when exposed to the same variables, eh?
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My mental health is vastly improved since achieving great social distance from the office. I will never, ever return, at pain of poverty and/or death.
If you prefer to die than to be with people than I have doubts about your mental health, either that, or you have a really really shitty job.
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Satya Nadella is CEO of a company with thousands of employees, he probably has some visibility of the issues that population is experiencing right now and of those who have been long term working from home that you likely don't.
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This is what I say, having worked exclusively from home since 2015:
Greetings individual, and yes I am referring to you as "individual" for a reason, because you are. Working from home at a distance affects different people in different ways. For many of us this pandemic has been the godsend we needed to ignore the world and get on with reading 2 books a day (girlfriend), or tinkering with code and my 3D printer in isolation.
But for others it has driven them mental. Several of my friends and colleagues have been going absolutely insane. One of my friends just needed to "cat
Another Dumb Thing Said by Satya (Score:5, Insightful)
Yesterday, Nadella said that women should trust "karma" instead of asking for pay raises. Nadella suggested that the “system” would reward their work
Working at home vs Working at Microsoft (Score:3, Funny)
Working at home could perhaps be damaging for your mental health.
Working at Microsoft is proven to be damaging for your mental health.
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Lets be reminded of other dumb things said by Satya like:
Why link something dumb with something relevant? Social isolation and working from home absolutely takes a toll on some people's mental health. Personally I don't get it either but then I'm an anti-social introvert, like I assume most of Slashdot. That doesn't mean I don't see very strong negative affects of working on home on other people.
Many out there are *not* coping. And Satya Nadella is absolutely right, one size does not fit all, and a company that has a universal work from home policy will take a to
Those who like it, are already ill. (Score:2)
Otherwise they wouldn't have an emotional pressure, more intense than the primal human need for social and physical contact.
Often, if not most of the time, this is a trauma, e.g. from being bullied for being different. At least with me it was.
Unfortunately, this is so common in the IT world, that it is considered normal, and some even act as if it is a lifestyle choice or something to be proud of, to not have to feel ashamed for it. (While still feeling bad, deep inside.)
Just like those morbidly obese or sk
Re:Those who like it, are already ill. (Score:5, Insightful)
What? How did you and Nadella arrive at the conclusion that working from home means you're alone all the time? Everyone I know, including me, who works from home does some work in relative solitude (relative actually involving children and spouses for some), and some work from "home" at coffee shops, libraries, etc.
What's a bit odd is being forced to report to a particular place every day and remaining there for half of your waking hours, packed into cubicles with a dozen or a thousand random people who you may or may not like.
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How did you and Nadella arrive at the conclusion that working from home means you're alone all the time?
For many people that is the case. How did you arrive to the conclusion that the GP and Nadella were talking about the entire workforce?
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Otherwise they wouldn't have an emotional pressure, more intense than the primal human need for social and physical contact. Often, if not most of the time, this is a trauma, e.g. from being bullied for being different. At least with me it was.
The trauma of having to interact with morons at the office is probably a leading cause. At least with me it was.
Using the Microsoft software stack is damaging. (Score:4, Interesting)
Teams is broken to the point it's unusable, and it crashes so often that it's a feat of amazement it stays active for an entire meeting. If you try to bring the bugs to the attention of Microsoft, they'll make excuse after excuse and then blame Linux.
Skype is very much in the same league, a little more stable but a total wreck on Linux, especially on Wayland. Again if you bring the problems to the attention of Microsoft, they'll make excuse after excuse and blame Linux.
Should be talk about Azure? I've lost count as to the number of bugs that we've discovered in it, to which Microsoft makes excuse after excuse and calls the bugs intentional development features. If you tell them you're on Linux, guess what!
Can anyone name a Microsoft piece of software that is not just decent, but good? They're usable to the point you can work with them if you have to, and they're more pleasant then a colonoscopy, but not by much.
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VSCode is pretty good.
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VSCode is damn good. Best editor on Linux. It's of course a bit sad that it is an Electron embedded-browser abomination, but what can you say? Ultimately the inside doesn't matter when the outside is that good.
The OP should compare offerings... Azure can be a PITA, but so can Google's cloud, or Amazon's. Teams has a lot of warts (this time, the Electron abomination shines through) but it works amazingly OK compared to its commercial competitors - let alone the free software ones.
Skype isn't a real Microsoft
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What makes Electron an abomination? That's it's built on the same software stack as the web? My personal record for the longest-lived desktop client app that didn't need a total rewrite just to keep up with the insane pace of change in devices and operating systems is the one I built using web technologies -- 8 years before Electron was even a glimmer in the eye. Every single other client app has had to be replaced.
Go with what works. The web stack is remarkable stable if you stick to the fundamentals.
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Visual Studio and Office are both arguably best in class. Personally I haven't had the terrible experience you have had with Teams, in fact it is the opposite. We just finished a rollout for a particularly irritable fussy business area and to our surprise after a couple of months they literally said "If nothing else Teams has made the whole upgrade pain worthwhile".
Office may be best in class, but I haven't found it particularly efficient to work with since around 2008 when each version seemed to decide consistency (or existence) of keyboard shortcuts was irrelevant to the program. Visual studio, on the other hand, is one MS program I find extremely valuable and have more complaints with the competitor programs (particularly during debugging).
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At least with the colonoscopy, you get drugs. With Microsoft, you have to buy your own drugs to suffer through the experience.
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Umm.... like I have issues with Teams when my ISP changes my IP address. Granted, I'm not using whatever application MS has for Teams for Linux, I just run it via Office365 and Chrome. Yes, on my Linux desktop.
Granted, not using Wayland, etc. (I'm on Mint MATE 19.x) but I've really had no issue with the stuff.
More Fear.... (Score:2, Troll)
Nothing like a CEO standing up and warning folks that they can't work from home because the CEO is scared. This kind of stuff is one of the main problems with Corporate America. Think politicians are bad when they think they know whats best for you? How about the person that can fire you without cause acting like they know what's best for you?
This CEO is scared about profits. This CEO is scared about the change in the system and the costs in production it might take to change to something that works
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The shit business people spout. I had a friend who watched a video from some woman and suddenly started diagnosing all her employees with personality disorders, and debating the best way to "fix" them. They're also all obsessed with a 1940s era Cosmo quiz for babies, and use it to make personel management decisions.
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Oh chill down. He's just justifying why he doesn't follow twitter in "work from home forever", and suggesting that maybe it isn't the best idea for everyone. The social isolation from working from home is a real thing. Some people can cope with it forever without changing a lot, most people probably can't. It's odd, but Microsoft's Nadella is the least psychopatic of major tech CEOs right now.
Less damaging than working in the office (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd say working from home will be less damaging than working in the office. Most of his statements sound like an MBA who's realized he's just lost a lot of the methods he's used to try to convince employees to give up all concept of a work/life balance. I have to remind managers that this is my job, not my life. The people in the office aren't my family, they aren't my friends, they're just my co-workers. That the office isn't the community I live in, it's just the place I work. The community I live in with my friends is a completely different place with little to no overlap with work. The managers don't like that because it means I'm not falling for the idea that my work is my life, which makes it harder for them to get more work out of me than I promised them when I took the job without paying me more money for it.
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Meh... Personally, I like both working from home and the office. I create more value in the office than at home though, without question.
If you spend two hours in the car getting to and from the office every day, and take a 10% pay cut to WFH, it might be a good deal for you. My ideal situation is about 30% of the time in the office for a good balance when factoring in the company and my own interests.
What's he worried about? (Score:2)
Don't confuse voluntary & involuntary interact (Score:2)
While I've had a few jobs where I enjoyed the company of my co-workers it's foolish to AssUme every job is like that or that workers can't wait to fucking retire so they can enjoy much more VOLUNTARY socialization put on hold to make money. For example I loved fixing fighters but hated paperwork and supervision though of course necessary turns into providing adult child care. I was glad to retire from the Air Force and pursue my mechanical interests in the vintage motorcycle community at my rather nice hom
Beltway bandit for 25 years (Score:5, Interesting)
I lived and died, and lived again over 25 years of enduring the thunderdromes that are the Washington DC beltway and Rt. 267 in northern Virginia. It got so bad that, at one point, I took a hiatus from work for 2 years to enjoy life outside of 2 hour-each-way commutes that covered distances that in no traffic at 3am on a Sunday morning would take 25 minutes to do, tops - just to spend my time in an open office floor plan with two monitors in front me displaying stuff that the two monitors that I already had at home could do just as well. Since then, I've committed to be a remote work-from-home type and, on the balance, I much prefer it. There is no commute to dread and the stress and frustration it breeds, my car insurance is much lower, my car will last longer and costs less to gas up and maintain, and I'm home to have dinner with my wife and kids every. single. day.
Yeah, sometimes I do miss the social interaction that the office brings and, up until COVID19 hit the landscape, I was seriously considering trying out a nearby low-key co-working space once a week to see if that brought any benefits in that category of life. But you know, that's also what weekends are for, or nights out. This Microsoftie seems to errantly think that work IS life, which is kind of the #1 reason people are waking up and don't want to put up with that bullsh*t anymore.
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Yeah, sometimes I do miss the social interaction that the office brings and, up until COVID19 hit the landscape, I was seriously considering trying out a nearby low-key co-working space once a week to see if that brought any benefits in that category of life.
I see Nadella as a self-serving, manipulative, disingenuous asshole. I also suspect, based on the pearls of wisdom he tosses out there once in a while, that he's fairly stupid but thinks he's brilliant. Just like many politicians. That's what he really is - a corporate politician.
That said, sometimes it's not just social contact that makes going to the office worthwhile. Sometimes it's good to be in the same room for brainstorming. A lot of valuable nuance can be lost even in a video conference as opposed t
Anything done to excess can be unhealthy (Score:2)
The difference between office working and remote working, however, at least as they used to exist, is that office working was mandatory. There was little or nothing that could be done to ameliorate the negative effects of having to go to the office and sit in an office chair, staring at a screen all day. People generally had core hours they had to keep, which forced them to sacrifice significant aspects of the rest of their lives, including socializing, spending quality time with their kids, etc. Someone
He just doesn't know how to run the company (Score:2)
He just doesn't know how to run the company without being able to monitor the "butts in seats" situation. Takes some getting used to, I agree, but I'm sure it could be done.
That said, of all the major tech companies, MS is by far the most friendly to WFH. Or at least it was a decade ago when I worked there. Google, for example, is downright hostile to WFH. Gotta keep you in that open office and keep you distracted to make your job harder.
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I toured a Google office with my father recently. It was impressive. The cafeteria, resident massage therapist, napping pods. He hinted I should look into getting a job there.
So I asked "I wonder why they need napping pods?"
Working from home is not for everyone (Score:2)
Personally I prefer it, have been doing it over for almost 2 decades. I've managed groups in-office and work from home. Not everyone is well suited for remote work, however connected. First, there are some people who are simply not very productive - when you work from home, you don't get to claim credit for being there 9 to 5, you actually need to deliver something tangible, Sometimes those people are dead wood that work from home exposes, but other times their primary role is more of a team social coordina
The ultimate is a balance that YOU get to choose (Score:2)
At my last employer, one of the absolute best things about doing I.T. support for them was that our small department worked really tightly together despite being spread out all over the country geographically. When I first took the job, I had to endure a stereotypical nasty daily DC metro area commute from the house we purchased pretty far out (so it was actually affordable). But after a while (and after some complaining and simply just DOING things differently to prove it was doable), all of us changed ou
Occasional in office attendance is good (Score:2)
I enjoy going in about once every month. Mainly meetings and chat. Then go home and so some real work.
It is odd that most of my interactions with other employees happen when we attend an international conference every year.
It's 2000 all over again (Score:2)
"[Working from home] is a cancer that attaches itself in [a mental health] sense to everything it touches. That's the way [working from home] works."
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/... [wikiquote.org]
"Yet [working from home] sort of springs organically from the earth. And it had, you know, the characteristics of communism that people love so very, very much about it...And I'm not trying to make fun of it, because it's a real competitive issue...we could either say, hey, [working from home] is going to roll over the world, bu
That's Cute (Score:4, Insightful)
Send me back to the cube farm (Score:2)
A cube with florescent lights is much more healthy, and a desk that is the wrong height. And all those interruptions at work are mentally healthy. I'm sure the stress of the commute adds to my mental health since dodging cars and meditating through hours of gridlock a week also contribute to mental health.
But for Satya Nadella, he's probably missing out on all those benefits because he hasn't experienced them yet.
Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates (Score:3)
What would they say about WFH if they were still MS' CEOs?
Just WOW - really? (Score:4, Informative)
So, I get the idea - social interaction is important. There's no dispute about that.
Yet the article is making an assumption on this, that the only social interaction a person may get, is at the office.
Perhaps, for a minority, this is the case - there are many lonely people out there.
However, for the majority, in normal times, we get a healthy dose of social interaction outside of any office environment.
Sure, in lockdown, this has been difficult - but heck, I've never chatted to my neighbours as much as I have in the last 7 weeks!
The truth is, working at home is fine dependent on a few obvious factors.
1. It doesn't suit everyone
2. You communicate effectively.
Before the lockdown, I worked from home 3 days out of 5, sometimes more.
Sure, I'd look forward to going into the office to see my work colleagues - but after an hour or so at my desk, it's just so uncomfortable.
There's so many distractions and I keep thinking "I'd be better off working from home."
My company looks like they are going to shift to even more WFH, so once we're allowed back to the office, I'll probably just pop in for an hour or two on an ad-hoc basis - maybe a morning or an afternoon once a week - perhaps a whiteboard session or a planning meeting with lots of interaction.
Bootleg CD can damage your CD player (Score:2)
Anyone remembers that lie to scare people away from buying bootlegged CD? This sounded just like that.
Permanently working from home can be damaging for mental health? As if he has any evidence of it.
Just think, how did most people work before the industrial revolution, before people gather to work in factories? Gee, people just work where they live, they must all be mentally damaged beyond help.
Management vs Engineering (Score:2)
Management would of course feel like that based on the fact that their job-worth is based all on social face-time interactions and meetings. So of course anyone in the management chain would feel like that.
Engineers that actually produce tangible work require quiet time to think and execute those ideas into productive work, so social interaction and meetings and being at some single physical locations isn't necessary.
Anyone that has their hands on the keyboard for more than just email would want to work fr
the flip side (Score:2)
Not for everyone (Score:3)
However, working from home requires a certain degree of self-discipline. Not all people can do this. Not all people can be unsupervised and productive. Not all people can work solo (we are social animals after all). Not all people can abstain from constantly opening a refrigerator.
Doctors worked from home for millennia (Score:4, Insightful)
Never complained once.
That's okay (Score:3)
... it's not like I was considering working at Microsoft anyway.
On a more serious note, three pieces of advice from someone who has been working from home for a while:
1. Have you considered going out and meeting friends after work? All that time you're not commuting at peak traffic can be now put to good use.
2. Don't work on the couch - get at least a corner with a desk. I have my own home office room but that's because i set up for working from home 20 years ago.
3. If you care about career advancement in the same company, move to places that are 100% WFH or you'll be left behind. Job hopping for raises also works though.
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Can't edit so:
Being a part of some group that does sports/hiking regularly is also a good idea. You'll also make new friends to hang out with that way :)
Azure stole my mental health (Score:2)
Theory X managers (Score:3)
Perspective (Score:3)
This coming from the mouth of a CEO who hasn't done an honest days " work " for twenty years.
( CEO's are about as disconnected from reality as you can get without being dead. )
To be honest, I get far, Far, FAR more work done while working from home as I don't have the usual office interruptions to deal with.
I don't have to commute for 2+ hours every day.
I don't have to worry about the weather or traffic.
I don't have to fight for parking upon arrival. ( Nor pay for said parking @ $15-20 / day )
I don't have to deal with Alice who used half a gallon of perfume this morning. ( allergies )
I don't have to fight with the lunch crowds.
I don't have to deal with Bob who yells into his cell phone at 120 db all day long.
I don't have to worry about folks who come to work sick because they're terrified of using a sick day. ( IF you get paid sick days )
I don't have to breathe the mold inside the building all day long because the company refuses to keep their buildings clean.
In short, I don't think the average CEO understands just how many positive aspects there are to working from home.
My current mental health could not possibly be any better.
( Unless those CEO's wanted to give me some of that Golden Parachute money they get every month. )
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Even if you have a room set aside as a 'home office', how do you really differentiate between 'work' and 'not work' if you're in the same building all the time?
Well, those of us who do actual productive work can pretty easily tell the difference between when we are and are not working - regardless of our location.
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i am perfectly okay, since i choose not to respond to calls, emails or texts out of hours. texts and emails i can read but will rarely respond, i might if i consider that it's a reasonable emergency, direct calls i reject right away, that's just too rude. if your job contributes something of value, time boxing it won't be a problem and stuff can wait for the appropriate time, that's how it's supposed to work.
it seems a rather personal matter to prefer either local, remote or a mix, ideally employees should
Re:There used to be a joke: (Score:4, Insightful)
i am perfectly okay, since i choose not to respond to calls, emails or texts out of hours. texts and emails i can read but will rarely respond, i might if i consider that it's a reasonable emergency, direct calls i reject right away, that's just too rude.
I quickly had to learn to never read work emails when I'm not actually working. First of all, you're spending your free time, unpaid, on something work related, whether you realize it or not. Without a doubt there would be some mention of something that pisses you off, or even just requires that you need to do something next time you're at work. Before you know it, you're making calendar entries or typing up a response.
Basically, you're working for free if you read those emails or texts off the clock.
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If you are currently "on call" then you get the emergency calls- location doesn't matter.
If you don't respond within 15 minutes while working from home and during your normal hours- then it's a problem.
If you meet your project estimates and do quality work- the location doesn't matter.
Finally- "work friends" are not real friends. I've had a dozen real friends for over 30 years. I didn't retain *one* work friend for more than 6 years during all that time- despite attending funerals- and one was even a fel
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how do you really differentiate between 'work' and 'not work' if you're in the same building all the time?
That's easy. One pays. The other doesn't.
I don't need to sacrifice immense amounts of time and money commuting or spend my waking hours among casual acquaintances and their various dysfunctions to detect the difference. Maybe you do. My sympathies.
The whole notion of a "work place" or "office" isn't some sanctified mandate from heaven. Until relatively recently most humans didn't partake in these conventions at all. How SOP for our species is a threat to mental heath is difficult to fathom. Fatho
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Well, work is stuff I do because someone pays me to. Not-work is stuff I do because I like it, think it's fun, or otherwise want to. It doesn't seem that tough a concept, honestly, and I'm self employed so the boundaries are even blurrier than for a regular employee.
I guess if your "work" mostly involves chatting it might be confusing.
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Here's an opposite case: I used to work for some guy who, if I made the mistake of eating lunch on my state-mandated 30 minute unpaid lunch break in my shop area, would invariably come in and interrupt that, expecting me to talk to someone on the phone, or test a PCB for him or some other work-related thing. I'd have to go eat in my car, and evne then he might come out into the parking lot to bug me while I'm taking my lunch break. Sometimes I'd ha
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Do you see the problem now?
yes, do you?
you were abused at the office, you were abused in the parking lot, you were abused down the street and you were abused at home. you should see a pattern there if you look closely :)
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I guess if your "work" mostly involves chatting it might be confusing.
and there goes my morning tea ...
now i can't get all those poor fellas out of my head. managers, evangelists, facilitators ... a whole taxonomy of exotic birds trapped in the solitude of their homes and ruthlessly exposed to their own irrelevance.
Re:There used to be a joke: (Score:4, Insightful)
"Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life."
For me, that's the only blurring between work and not-work, and it's a pleasant one. If I need to be coerced to do it, it's work. If you're going to pay me for something I'd do anyway, it's the best kind of work, and also the best kind of play.
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Most of our mothers did just that.
People need social interaction. What's not clear is why we need to interact the way a CEO of a large corporation who has a vested interest in maintaining his staffing model thinks we should.
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